Rover, Pick up All Your Dog Toys!

If you’re like me, you buy a new dog toy at least once every couple of weeks. That is a lot of dog toys. And it is expensive too. So how can you save money and what do you do with them all?

Make Your Own Toys (Recycle)When my dog Sephi passed on, I was left with a bunch of pet bandanas. Maya and Pierson didn’t look good in them so I gave them to someone so they could make dog toys with them instead. I got some of those toys and the rest are being sold for $1 each and each $1 gets donated to a good cause. So if you have old clothes which are not in good shape to donate, cut them up to make braided dog ropes or other dog toys. One which I like to do with old socks is put a tennis ball or even a plastic water bottle inside and tie the end.

The Old Switch-a-RooIf you not only buy toys and make them too, you could be completely overwhelmed with toys. I find that the newer my dogs’ toys are, the more they play with them. So to keep them interested in all their toys, I let them play with new toys for a few days, put them away, then take out some older toys. Since the dogs haven’t played with the older toys in a while, they are like new! I do this with about five sets of dog toys over a monthly period.

SuperviseBe careful about letting your dog chew on certain toys when you are not home. Homemade toys are great but they can be easily ingested if your dog is allowed to tear them up. Always watch your dog when he is playing with a destructible dog toy and put it away when he is not playing with it.

A Toy BoxIn order to keep yourself or other people in the household from falling and tripping over all the dog toys, put them in a dog toy box. I use an inexpensive laundry basket as a toy box. It works great and I can put it in a room where the dogs are not allowed so that they can’t take all the toys out at once and leave them all over the house.

How often do you buy your dog toys? Do you make your own dog toys too? Where do you put them all?